Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Chicken Little Hooks

I got a memo from Department Of Why Don't You Try Putting All This In Perspective today.  Apparently, I need to start practicing the fine art of sucking it up.  Things could be worse.  

Sure, I may have missed out on on the knitting yesterday because of the need to impose some belated money management and deal with the bank.  I may have had to perform this act of fiscal responsibility while riding my exercise bike, thereby combining my two least favorite things: math and cardio.  I also may have had to watch several of my colleagues get swept away in the tidal wave of budget cuts swamping our school district and spend a portion of my own teaching day jumping like I'd heard a gunshot every time the intercom squawked at me.  You never can tell in these times of hardship.  Every meeting, every phone call....it  could be the one where you hear that it's your head on the block.  But, things could still be worse.

For example, I could be the teacher in one of our other schools who happened to look up and notice that the ceiling in her classroom was looking a little "bulbous" yesterday.  

I could be the superintendent of schools who had to get the call from the fire department informing him that many, many beams which are responsible for holding up the school are cracked from trying to bear up the weight of the roof plus ninety million pounds of snow.

I could be the parents who are stuck at home with their children because the school is now condemned.  

For that matter, I could be any one of the other teachers in that building who will be relocated along with their children as of Friday and are trying to pull together something resembling an educational experience while getting settled into other school buildings in the district.

See?  It could be way worse.  I still have a job and the ceiling hasn't fallen on my head.  At least, it hasn't to date.  We are getting more of the snow and ice tonight so I suppose anything is possible.  I'm going to camp out firmly on the positive side of things, though.  I shall go boldly forth into my teaching day tomorrow fully expecting the roof to remain aloft.  It's too easy to let stuff get to you.  You gotta believe the roof will hold.  

Of course, I still didn't knit today.  That particular activity didn't seem to appeal to me.  But, fear not!  In celebration of ceilings that stay where they belong, I did, in fact, make yarn do stuff.  I crocheted.  

I'm practicing making some sort of net.  A little something I can suspend over my desk just in case the ceiling does decide to do something gravity-related.  It's one thing to think positively.  

It's another to live dangerously.

SA

14 comments:

Leigh said...

A positive attitude always helps! (But so does knitting ;)

Anonymous said...

Oh my! That's pretty distressing news. What are they going to do with the building?

Mel said...

I think that in your school district they're just expecting rain with this latest, though I suppose if it's not draining off the rooftop it might just be a concern. We'll hope for dry, nonbuckling ceilings, either way.

Anonymous said...

None of this is good except maybe the keeping positive thing. I'll think good thoughts for the job and the roof.

Anonymous said...

Oh, that roof thing is scary. Glad no one was squished by falling roofs. We all kinda take the infrastructure for granted until it falls in (remembering That Bridge in Minneapolis).

The Kelly Green Rogue said...

hurray for ceilings staying where they belong!

April said...

Don't use hemp.

Mia said...

Maybe Chicken Little had something there *grin*

Hang in, another weekend is comin' up fast.

knitnzu said...

All the news about school ceilings brought me back to the 2nd grade (Tewksbury Mass), when, during snack one morning, one of the students started to walk out of the class (we were on the second floor). She was opening the door when we heard a gihugic and thunderous crash. The floor in the hallway had disappeared... crashed into the first floor! Nobody was hurt, so the story is fun to tell. We ended up finishing the year in the basement of the church a couple doors down the road... except for some reason I don't remember, we would line up to walk over to the school to use the bathrooms. We did the next year there as well.

Anonymous said...

Holy camoly (how do you spell that?)
My own roof woes seem somehow insignificant after that...
Let's hope someone figures out how to get some of that extra snow/ice off the roof, and that the snow gods hold off on dumping more until that's done.
Meawhile, you will show us your crocheted object, won't you?

Alwen said...

It completely befuddles me when they go and build flat-roofed buildings here in Michigan.

Hello, people, a roof in a snowy climate should shed snow!

One place where I worked, the flat roof leaked (duh) and they had suspended ceilings. Their solution: take out the leaked-on, soggy tile, and wire a plastic wastebasket up in the tile grid to catch the leak water, then replace the tile with a brand-new one.

Boy, would I have liked to watch when the forgotten, hidden wastebasket filled up and ripped through the clean, unleaked-on ceiling tile!

Cursing Mama said...

Exciting stuff like that never happens to me! Not that I am complaining, I am just saying it would be easier to blog daily if something would happen.

sheep#100 said...

The phrase "overcrowded classrooms" comes to mind about now.

Glad your woolly head is still safe, attached, and without egg-sized bumps on it.

Ninety million pounds of snow. the mind reels. No wonder you keep trying to get me to drive up there to haul some away.

Yarnhog said...

I can see the headlines now: "Sheepish Teacher's Knitted Net Saves Students!" (Say it out loud. And yes, I know it's crochet, but the Muggles won't!)